Page:Account of the dreadful accident and great loss of lives which occurred at Kirkcaldy, on Sunday the 15th June, 1828.pdf/14

14 and the whole ready to fall with the slightest concussion. Nay more, we have not a shadow of doubt in our mind, that had the congregation on Sunday been fairly assembled before the accident of the west gallery took place, the concussion usually produced by the rising of the multitude to prayer, would have occasioned the downfal of the entire range, and led to a calamity incomparably more dreadful than even that which has actually occurred.

The following measurements and calculations will perhaps serve to give our readers a clearer idea of the nature and extent of the accident than any description, however minute. The galleries swept round three sides of the church, which is in form a parallelogram. The portion immediately in front of the pulpit, which stands at the northern end or gable, is a semicircle, from the extremities of which two sides, each about fifty or fifty-one feet in length, run longitudinally in a parallel direction along the whole church. The average horizontal breadth of each of those sides is about sixteen feet, and they are raised at an angle of from 80 to 88 degrees. The one which gave way on Sunday last was that on the right hand of the pulpit, which is towards the west; and from the side which still remains we find that it must have contained 21 seats in all, each fitted to hold eight persons with perfect ease and comfort. But as the church was crowded, let us suppose that there were ten persons in each seat, and forty standing in the passages. This we know to be